Google In-Depth Articles Search Results: Any Hope for Small Publishers?

UPDATE: Some Hope for Small Publishers

11 August 2013 We have seen before where a new feature like this only works for big guys in the beginning but eventually rolls out for anyone. Authorship would be a case in point. I set it up when it first came out, but waited several frustrating months where only very big names were showing up with their author photos in the SERPs. Then all of a sudden, a valve was turned, and my and many others’ photos started showing.

Another small encouragement: one observer pointed me to a quote on the official Google Inside Search blog where the writer promises that this feature will surface “some great articles from lesser-known publications and blogs”.

Finally seeing some examples of the new Google “In-depth articles” search results feature in my Google Search. Below is a screen capture from a search for “social media.” Also found such results for “google search” and “national debt.”

As promised, these only seem to show for short-tail, very broad subjects. And not all subjects. For example, “urban renewal” turns up on “in-depth article” results.

Although I read someone yesterday who claimed a Google rep told him they would show in the middle of the SERP, all the examples I’m finding are showing at the very bottom.

In all the examples I’ve found so far, the articles are from very highly-known publications.

Initial Reaction

My first disappointment is the thought that it will be difficult to impossible for anyone below the level of a +The New York Times or +Rolling Stone to get shown in this. My only hope would be if they either expand the number of results shown (not likely) or expand the number of topics, or open it to slightly more long-tail topics.

+Pete Meyers the Moz data doctor, tells me he is going to accumulate data on these over the next several days, so I’ll look forward to what he finds.

Comments

Hi. I’m playing around with your in-depth articles generator plug-in, and I’m wondering: why is it inserting the tag for an image but has no way to link to one?

Look here: http://s108668865.onlinehome.us/wordpress3/wordpress/?p=1 (It’s a sandbox). Check the source, and there’s an ASHTON!!! in the heading (inserted using your plug in) All the other fields work, and it grabs publication date correctly. But there’s no field for image in the plugin and when I dropped an image link into the post (expecting nothing but hoping for the best) I got … what I expected.

Are you still supporting the In Depth Articles Generator plugin? I’ve run into a small issue with the plugin and am hoping it can be resolved, as the plugin is fine otherwise. The plugin is adding the blog post title and author name to the bottom of every post, right under the last line of content, which is odd. Is there a known fix for this?

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